History YMMV / BookOfGenesis

* DoubleStandard: Some people have put the blame of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge solely on Adam, others[[labelnote:*]]including Adam himself[[/labelnote]] on Eve. Others [[TakeAThirdOption put the blame on both, or neither]].

* A possible (but based on conjecture) reason for Noah finding God's favor was that he was uncorrupted by Nephilim DNA, as one of the things God wanted to eliminate was the Nephilim. That, combined with Noah and his family being the only ones left who honored God, made him a natural choice to carry on humanity after the flood.

** Jacob gets a mild case in the story of Dinah's violation. Shechem violated Dinah and kept her at his home while trying to persuade her brothers to give her to him in marriage. [[BigBrotherInstinct Dinah's brothers]] [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge objected]]. They [[DisproportionateRetribution went too far in their revenge]], killing people who had nothing to do with it, but one can certainly sympathize with their motives. Does Jacob care that they saved his daughter from being married to the guy who violated her? No, he's worried that they've endangered his whole family by making it "a stench in the nostrils" of the surrounding peoples. Mainly because the brothers had asked for the whole city of Shechem to be circumcised, a sign of the covenant with God among the Hebrews, as part of the dowry for the wedding, and with all the men incapacitated, they were able to attack. The underhanded use of circumcision in such a way would not reflect kindly on the Hebrews as a whole, as no one would be willing to trust a tribe which uses their sacred bond with God as a weapon.
** Jacob in general, in fact: he swindles his brother Esau out of his blessing, makes a poor husband to his wives with his favoritism to Rachel driving them to vicious sisterly rivalry (dragging their handmaidens into the feud by making them his concubines as well), and does rather poorly as a father as well in view of the murderous envy his favoritism to Joseph stirred up in his other sons. Even so, God continues to favor him to the end.

* DesignatedVillain:
** Dinah's brothers. The narrative takes a dim view of their [[RapeAndRevenge getting revenge for Dinah's rape]]. However, the major problem with this view is that they pretty much butchered the whole city instead of the one guy, the prince, who actually raped Dinah, and took the women into slavery. The reason they managed to do that is because they convinced them all to get circumcised, an act which would have meant they were all now part of the pact with God and his followers. Circumcision was a sign that a man was part of the Abrahamic covenant, so for Dinah's brothers to use it in such an underhanded way destroys the idea that the Hebrew nation is trustworthy to her neighbours. (Their own father does call them out on this, too.)
** Ham in that many question how stumbling upon your naked drunk father and laughing about it to your your brothers [[DisproportionateRetribution warrants having your bloodline cursed into slavery]]. Some scholars suggest he did something worse like castrating and/or raping his father in his sleep.

** Joseph. Sold by his brothers to slavery, then wrongly accused of rape and imprisoned for years. It takes a while before he [[EarnYourHappyEnding earns his happy ending]].

** A fairly common one is that neither the serpent nor Eve did anything wrong. One version is that they were simply in the right to choose knowledge over ignorance; a less generous one is that they were deliberately set up to fail.

* DoubleStandard: Some people have put the blame of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge solely on Adam, others[[labelnote:*]]including Adam himself[[/labelnote]] on Eve. Others [[TakeAThirdOption put the blame on both]].

** Why does Rebekah help her son Jacob cheat his brother Esau out of their father's blessing? Is it a shameless act of ParentalFavoritism? Or is she doing what she believes is God's will, since God told her before her sons were born that the elder would serve the younger? Or does she objectively realize that Jacob's character makes him better suited to be Isaac's heir? For that matter, is Isaac really fooled by Jacob's disguise, or –- since he does briefly recognize his voice –- does he only pretend to be fooled because he belatedly realizes that Jacob is the more suitable heir, but knows that the HotBlooded Esau will never willingly give up his blessing?

** When Noah is described as "a just man and perfect in his generations", does it mean that he was truly just and morally perfect?[[note]]This completely contradicts the central pillar of Christian theology: that after the Fall of Man, ''everybody'' who has ever lived or will live, with no exceptions, is imperfect and full of sin and needs Jesus to redeem them. Yet here, the implication is that Noah's perfection exempts him from this.[[/note]] Or was he simply [[FairForItsDay the best of a bad generation]], who wasn't so perfect compared to later heroes –- as evidenced by the fact he doesn't plead for God to spare the world, the way Abraham later does for Sodom and Gomorrah, and that all he does after the Flood is get drunk and curse his grandson for a sin the boy's father committed? Alternatively, are his post-Flood actions a sign of [[ShellShockedVeteran character-damaging trauma]] from having survived the world's destruction? Furthermore, adding up the dates that his descendants have children reveals that he did not die until Abraham was sixty years old, meaning that disregarding the unlikely case that the Tower of Babel was built only in the decade between Noah dying and God commanding Abraham to go to Canaan, he was alive when the Tower was built. Did he just become a hermit after his children's children grew up and didn't know about it? Did he know, [[PushoverParents but feel powerless to stop it]]? '''[[FaceHeelTurn Was it his idea to begin with?]]'''

** Lot's offer to let the men of Sodom have at his two daughters if they would leave his guests alone and not violate SacredHospitality is a fucked-up thing to do to one's own kids by modern standards at the ''very'' least, and as mentioned in AlternativeCharacterInterpretation, has led to some people questioning just how righteous Lot really was.Notably, it isn’t something for which Lot is praised in the text.

** Lot's offer to let the men of Sodom have at his two daughters if they would leave his guests alone and not violate SacredHospitality is a fucked-up thing to do to one's own kids by modern standards at the ''very'' least, and as mentioned in AlternativeCharacterInterpretation, has led to some people questioning just how righteous Lot really was.

** Abraham and God during his story. Not only was Abraham willing to sacrifice his "only" son without much question (and in the earliest version, he killed Isaac), but before this, he also exiled his concubine and their illegitimate son on God's orders. God also comes off as needlessly abusive in this story, first by making Abraham's wife barren for most of their lives, then banishing his other wife and child when his first wife finally gives birth to Isaac, and then forcing Abraham to murder Isaac to test him. And then changing his mind at the last second. [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation Maybe.]]

* RonTheDeathEater: Esau was a rival to his brother Jacob, but nowhere near an outright villain (and remember, Jacob tricked ''him'' out of ''his'' birthright). He even forgives Jacob when they meet again as adults.[[note]]Jacob did give him a lot of livestock though.[[/note]] However, since he was considered to be the ancestor of the Edomites, enemies of the Israelites, he was given a HistoricalVillainUpgrade.[[note]]Note that the Edomites didn't exist as a nation by the first century, but they were considered by the rabbis to be the ancestors of all the nations and people that have persecuted Jews throughout history, including [[Literature/BookOfEsther Haman]] and Rome.[[/note]] According to Literature/TheTalmud, he was a [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking rapist, murderer, and he denied God]]. He also [[KickTheDog tried to prevent Jacob being buried]] with Abraham and Isaac in the Cave of the Patriarchs, claiming that as firstborn he had the right to be buried there.

* RonTheDeathEater: Esau was a rival to his brother Jacob, but nowhere near an outright villain (and remember, Jacob tricked ''him'' out of ''his'' birthright). He even forgives Jacob when they meet again as adults.[[note]]Jacob did give him a lot of livestock though.[[/note]] However, since he was considered to be the ancestor of the Edomites, enemies of the Israelites,[[note]]The Edomites didn't exist as a nation by the first century, but they were considered by the rabbis to be the ancestors of all the nations and people that have persecuted Jews throughout history, including [[Literature/BookOfEsther Haman]] and Rome[[/note]] he was given a HistoricalVillainUpgrade. According to Literature/TheTalmud, he was a [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking rapist, murderer, and he denied God]]. He also [[KickTheDog tried to prevent Jacob being buried]] with Abraham and Isaac in the Cave of the Patriarchs, claiming that as firstborn he had the right to be buried there.

** Who did Jacob wrestle? The text is ambiguous as to whether it was an angel, God himself, or some kind of avatar. Jacob earns the name "Israel" (''yisra El'', "struggles against God") through his victory, which seems to point to his opponent actually being ''God'', but the Literature/BookOfHosea later refers to him having wrestled against an angel (''malak''). It gets fuzzier (and prone to fighting) when considering the opinion of most scholars that the story dates from pre-monotheistic traditions, when the terms "angel" and "god" were defined differently anyway.[[note]]Furthering the confusion is the fact that the name "Israel" shows up as a personal name elsewhere in the area, and may in fact actually mean something closer to "God prevails" or "El prevails". It's possible that the scene was essentially intended to make two separate folk heroes, Jacob and Israel, into a CompositeCharacter as the Israelites assimilated more tribes and cities around them.[[/note]]